After an emotional loss to Oregon State Thursday night, the Utes are eager to get back on track against No. 16 Oregon Sunday afternoon.
The first time these two teams met, the Ducks outplayed Utah for the entire 40 minutes and got a 77-59 win in Salt Lake. This time around, the Utes are sure the margin of victory for whichever team wins will not be as wide.
Dakarai Tucker has been finding his stroke from three point range lately and against the Beavers he was 3-of-6 from beyond the arc. However, things did not go so well against the Ducks the first time as he finished the game with only three points. He knows he’ll need to keep finding and hitting those open shots if the Utes stand a chance of getting a win in Eugene, but he is hopeful the entire team will be able to redeem itself.
“What they did to us, it was disrespectful,” Tucker said.
Head coach Larry Krystkowiak realized how difficult it may be for his team to bounce back after its last second loss in Corvallis, but continues to remind his players to have no regrets. They certainly do not want to come out flat against Oregon two times in one season, so they will need to do everything in their power to forget about their most recent play.
The Ducks are currently riding a five-game win streak, but rather than focusing on how Utah can end this, Krystkowiak is hoping his players will instead focus on how they can improve from the last game and in doing so, get a win on the road. They cannot let the crowd influence how they play so they will need to stick together and support each other no matter what.
“Each of us have our own challenges and our own obstacles,” Krystkowiak said. “Oregon has put themselves in position where they’ve garnered some road wins and they’re ahead of the pack.”
Although the team’s most recent loss may have been the hardest to swallow this season, Krystkowiak knows it happened for a reason. It’s certainly better that something like this happened now than in postseason play.
It was one game, maybe one that got away, but still one game that is in the past. Right now, all the Utes are focused on is Sunday’s battle against Oregon.
“We just keep grinding and try to get a little bit better,” Krystkowiak said. “I don’t know how good we can be or what we’re going to be defined as. We want to be playing our best basketball at this time, or hopefully the end of the season and hopefully we’ve learned from our mistakes. Can’t get complacent and can’t be satisfied with where you are.”
With several games coming down to the wire for Utah, the team is going to focus on taking better care of the ball in addition to playing lockdown defense. From there, so long as the players bring enough energy to the game, they should be able to compete with the top team in the Pac-12.
Game starts at 1 p.m. PT.
@kbrenneisen